Side of the Rhode: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not? - November 26, 2021

HOT

Buying Local This Holiday Season

Okay, we are biased.

As a homegrown local media company, we think it is good for the Rhode Island economy to invest in area small businesses rather than corporate behemoths.

Think local, support local! Keeps the jobs and revenues in the state. 

HOT

PC Men's Soccer

On Sunday, the Friars defeated No. 14-seed Marshall, 2-1, in overtime in the second round of the NCAA tournament. 

Davis Smith scored the golden goal in the 104th minute to take down the defending national champions in Huntington, West Virginia.

Next, PC will advance to the NCAA third round for the fourth time in program history (2014, 2016, 2019, 2021) and will face No. 3 seed Georgetown on Sunday, November 28 at noon at Shaw Field in Washington, D.C.

For the Friars, Georgetown is a known adversary.

Providence is 1-1 vs. the Hoyas this season. The Friars earned a 3-0 victory over the then-No. 1 Georgetown squad during the regular season on October 13.

Georgetown earned a 2-1 overtime victory in the most recent meeting between the two teams on November 14 in the Big East championship game.

Coach Craig Stewart, who has driven the Friars' success and is about as demonstrative as Bill Belichick, is well-positioned for a win at Georgetown Sunday.

HOT

RI Woman Wants to Teach Everyone Sign Language

A Rhode Island educator wants to help all kids learn sign language — and wants to help make it fun.

Deb Visnueski Fontaine, who resides in Harmony along with her husband Joe Fontaine, recently wrote, “The Signing Kids Present: Learning Sign Language Through Laughter.” 

According to Fontaine, the benefits for hearing children to learn Sign Language include better memory, increased brain growth and development, and stimulation of the formation of brain synapses. She says it also helps with early spelling and reading skills, and benefits children with ADD and dyslexia.

In the book — which will be the first in a series coming out in January — six illustrated children teach young readers whimsical sign language sentences beginning with each letter of the alphabet. 

For Fontaine, the journey to published author has been a passion-filled one. 

Fontaine had not always set out to become a Sign Language expert — but her life led her on a path that took her there. 

Now, she wants to help everyone, starting with children, learn how to sign.

READ MORE

HOT

Wrong Number Calls Turns Into Unlikely Friendship

A Florida woman mistakenly -- and repeatedly -- called a Rhode Island man's phone number two decades ago.

This week, the two previous strangers met in person. 

Rhode Islander Mike Moffitt said that twenty years ago, he kept getting calls from the same unknown Florida number -- from a woman who would always apologize for having dialed the wrong number -- before hanging up. 

According to Moffitt, it happened so often, he stored the number simply as "Florida woman."

One day, he decided to inquire further, and soon found out why the mix-up kept occurring -- and in the process, became friends with the woman who kept dialing his number. 

READ MORE 

HOT

Bipartisan Coalition of State AGs Are Investigating Instagram, Including RI’s Neronha

A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general said late last week it is investigating how Instagram attracts and affects young people.

Instagram is owned by Meta — formerly named Facebook.

Led by eight states, including Massachusetts and Nebraska, the coalition is focused on “the techniques utilized by Meta to increase the frequency and duration of engagement by young users and the resulting harms caused by such extended engagement.”

RI’s Attorney General Peter Nernoha’s office has confirmed that his office has signed on to the multi-state initiative.

Attorney General Neronha joined a nationwide investigation into Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, for providing and promoting its social media platform – Instagram – to children and young adults despite knowing that such use is associated with physical and mental health harms. Attorneys General across the country are examining whether the company violated state consumer protection laws and put the public at risk,” said Kristy dosReis, communications director for Neronha.

“When social media platforms treat our children as mere commodities to manipulate for longer screen time engagement and data extraction, it becomes imperative for state attorneys general to engage our investigative authority under our consumer protection laws,” said Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, a Republican.

HOT

Local Shop Features Great Works

Michael Rose knows art. Once again, the Providence Art Club Gallery Manager -- ad GoLocal contributor -- has featured more local gems.

Exhibitions of small artworks are a staple of the holiday season. On view through January 15, 2022, at Paper Nautilus Books on Wayland Square, Small Doses offers a collection of modestly sized contemporary artworks that reinterprets the idea of a small works show. Curated by Barbara Owen of Periphery Space, this exhibition offers an enticing collection of work by fifteen talented local artists inside one of the city’s most beloved bookshops.

 Small Doses includes a wonderful variety of media, from printmaking and painting to collage and drawing. Works executed in watercolor are at home alongside monotypes, etchings, and letterpress prints. Although small in scale, the works on view are interesting and worthy of examination. They delightfully show off a range of subjects that draw the focus of contemporary art-makers.

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NOT

Foulkes Was In Charge at CVS, Now a Jury Finds the Company Guilty in Fueling Opioid Crisis

Jurors in a federal court case concluded that actions by the pharmacy chains CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens helped create a public nuisance that resulted in an oversupply of addictive pain pills and the diversion of those opioids to the black market.

Rhode Island Democratic candidate for Governor Helena Foulkes was the head of the pharmacy at CVS during a portion of the time in which the violations occurred. 

The verdict was confirmed by lawyers for the plaintiffs. The jury only assessed liability. It is up to U.S. District Judge Dan Polster to decide how much the companies must pay in Ohio's Lake and Trumbull Counties according to Reuters.

Judge Polster has tentatively scheduled a trial on that question for May 9. The counties' lawyers have said the costs are potentially $1 billion for each county.

Foulkes' Role 

Foulkes earlier this month repeatedly refused to answer questions from GoLocal about her role as a top executive at CVS in the opioid crisis.

The New York Times reports that “the verdict — the first from a jury in an opioids case — may be encouraging to plaintiffs in thousands of lawsuits nationwide who are relying on the same legal strategy employed in this case, namely that pharmaceutical companies contributed to a “public nuisance” — a legal term that plaintiffs contend covers the public health crisis created by opioids.”

The argument was not victorious in earlier cases in California and Oklahoma.

But, CVS faces thousands of cases across the country, including in Kentucky where Attorney General Daniel Cameron filed a lawsuit in June against CVS Health for the company’s role in Kentucky’s opioid epidemic.

“CVS played a dual role in creating, fueling, and maintaining the opioid epidemic within Kentucky’s borders — (1) through their retail pharmacies, as dispensers of opioids to the public, and (2) as a wholesale distributor, taking and shipping orders to and from their own pharmacies. Occupying two links in the opioid supply chain, CVS was in a unique and superior position of knowledge with regard to the gross amount of opioids pumped into their stores and poured out onto the streets of Kentucky,” said Cameron.

NOT

Magaziner Won't Answer $800,000 Question

Seth Magaziner continues to refuse to disclose where he received the $800,000 he lent his campaign.

The refusal raises questions about who gave him the money. Was it family -- or a special interest who had an interest in who would be managing the state's $10 billion pension fund? 

Magaziner has, however, called on the other candidates running for office to be transparent and disclose their five previous years' taxes. 

Magaziner made the demand for the release of tax returns. Magaziner is one of five prominent Democrats running for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2022.

“Rhode Islanders deserve to have trust in their elected officials and we earn that trust by being transparent,” said Magaziner -- in talking about taxes.  “Candidates in Rhode Island should follow the long-accepted custom that President Trump broke when he refused to release his tax returns.  No one should ever have to guess who their elected officials are working for.”